In the vault of personal history lessonsI bank this one from the Bay Colony.

History is family and how far we go back is though the repetitions of American centuries

like seasons, back to the boat where persecutions landed

and seeded in Salem farmsteadswith their mysterious pilgrim conceits.

Goodwife Nurse from Great Yarmouthwas 33 years in the new world

eight children and a mediator’s wife.They said she was as good as good is,

an unlikely accused witch, not allowed a lawyer

in a trial full of spectral evidence.Rebecca was the martyr

who turned the tide of religious hysteria.Thirty-nine signed the petition

that still survives in a museumproving the pitifulness of petitions.

Innocence overturned,reprieves reversed:

the trials of the womenwho are hung in public.

Rebecca Nurse was frail and deafand the questions of her court floated away

unto justice and the silencewas taken as proof of her guilt.

They also said she could fly.

Years after the recants and vindicationsand her house made historic

and her name found in a playpersecuting new persecutors

and new verdicts blaming Satan or bad wheat

or boundary disputes among neighborsor outspoken critics

who make themselves a targetof those they stand up against,

her family forgave everybodybut the village minister.

They hung a 71 year old womanin 1962. And I tell myself,

they can hang you, too.

In the play, Rebecca stands at the gallowsand her children ask her why

she hasn’t said more in her defense.Rebecca says she has lived long enough.

And she is credible and bravebefore the judgements of ***.

And if blood countsand if I have one-eighth of her

in me, one-eighth of the defiance against the loving dead,

that is something, as they say,to take to the bank.

Not a story, not a claim, not a wordnot a pulpit, not a altar, but a seed

in a hallowed bank of seeds.

These poems for NaPoWriMo were inspired by a poem I did years ago for my friend Michelle after hearing she passed away, 30 poems for inspiring women connected to me. The title now says "33 Women" because the poem to Michelle poem had already been written as well as two prologues I posted March 31. Some of their pictures are posted here: http://www.marymccray.com/33-women.html.